


The Two Generals Problem Cast-offs

by Draskireis



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Backstory sections, Castoff sections, M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-03-09 22:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draskireis/pseuds/Draskireis
Summary: Does what it says on the tin.  I don't write chronologically, so it doesn't always work out that everything gets used.





	1. Dex's Pentina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally gonna be a part of some manner of Dexly grand gesture at/to Nursey, but woulda required that Dex be rather less confident in his gayness than I've already written him to be (and probably to come out in a different fashion than the section I will someday get to post that I wrote last summer on a series of buses).

I thought I’d write you a poem  
It seemed a good way to show my feelings  
They’re eating me up, keeping this secret  
I’m distracting myself with a challenge  
You lied when you said poetry lacks rules 

I live my life by my rules  
I cannot stop that, even for your poem  
Plus, following the form’s enough challenge  
It’s hard to suffocate on these feelings  
When counting syllables of my secret 

I didn’t want this secret  
I’m so terrified of breaking my rules  
That it gets in the way of the feelings  
I can’t put them into this, my—your—poem  
Who knew three words would be such a challenge 

You’re my favorite challenge  
There, now that’s out of the way—my secret  
It only took me half this silly poem—  
But I thought liking guys broke my damn rules  
So I pretended I had no feelings 

It’s bad to bottle feelings  
But easing off the pressure’s a challenge  
Exploding, you know, also breaks the rules  
I don’t want more harm caused by this secret  
To prevent that, I’ve written you this poem

A poem to expose my feelings’ secret  
Now here’s your challenge: help me break my rules


	2. Unused Kid-Dex sectionlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the earliest backstory sections I wrote when planning this thing. It informed Dex pretty thoroughly, but I could never quite pin it to a conflict section, so it was always this sorta poignant background thing, too short to stand on its own.

Billy’s hand was small inside his mother’s as they walked down the street in the city—he wasn’t old enough to have gone even so far as Portland, so Waldoboro might as well have been The City to Billy.  Spring was balmy around him, with just a lick of humidity as a hint of summer to come.  Erin had brought him along for her errands that day, and Billy was as irrepressibly excited as any other time he got to go.

He wanted to go into all of the stores to look at all of the nice, new things.  Even new clothes were exciting: Billy was clad in iterated hand-me-downs, some of which predated James and had belonged first to cousins.  His church clothes were the least-patched, naturally.  His mother gently steered him away from the stores they wouldn’t be visiting.

Billy was young enough that his enthusiasm outstripped his perception—he hadn’t learned that his actions had effects on other people, unless it were obvious, as in the case of hitting them.  He’d learned that chiefly as object rather than subject, but the lesson had still sunk in.  He was as excited at the potential for going into each new store as he had been for the last, and didn’t notice his mother’s weary sadness as she took him by the shoulders.

Erin hated stores with toys in them.  Billy got so excited, declaring that he wanted, well, everything.  Or at least each thing in turn.  Money wasn’t a thing that registered in his mind yet, and Erin didn’t want to crush him with its weight any time soon.  But he started crying when she told him he can’t have one of the big sets of legos, and she had to explain it somehow that didn’t make it his fault.

‘Oh, darling.  I’m sorry that I can’t afford to get you that.  But it’s no use, you know, wanting what you know you can’t have.’

She didn’t mean to teach Billy any sort of lesson.


	3. Nursey writes in circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I may use this for a thing in Syn/Ack, but for now it's just sitting around looking at me weird. So here's Nursey being a bit angsty and a bit pine-y.

‘Why so fucking chill?  
We all know that it’s just an act’  
I know; you know; _everyone_ knows (I scream, you scream)  
My chill is equanimity amidst turmoil  
It’s a remove from the world, an ease of friction  
Distance affords the greatest measure of safety

What’s safety, you ask?  
I suppose you would want to know  
I’m coming to understand (you scream when they scream)  
That you’re not very familiar with the concept  
It’s not actually something I’ve experienced  
As the lie of safety is ill-fitting armor

What, then, is armor?  
Hard to say, as our styles differ  
My evasions, your spikes (you scream when hits get through)  
While avoidance allows for zero exceptions  
Spined vambraces are not built for defensive use  
Just as that bed of nails offers you no comfort

Who stole your comfort?  
That ease you cannot recover  
You hold close its absence (you scream over the void)  
How come you didn’t notice when the change began?  
Did the Black Knight care that he cut out his heart first?  
Was your hollow armor worth sacrificing trust?

Can one relearn trust?  
I opened this with a secret  
I ask for nothing in return (you needn’t scream)  
Consider it an offering—a show of faith  
I will stand still; please refrain from preemptive strikes  
If you’d let me join you, we can stand together 

Why work together?  
Beyond the obvious, that is  
Would you say forced teamwork counts? (we scream for our team)  
If we fought back to back, we might yet discover  
What was obvious to everyone all along  
You would not need your armor; I could lose my chill


End file.
